


Forever More

by agerefandom (tazia101)



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Phantom of the Opera (2004), Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber
Genre: Age Regression, CGLRE, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, Mama!Christine, Non-Sexual Age Play, Nudity, Regressor!Erik, Scars, We Need Better Regression Tags On Here, agere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:28:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28585737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tazia101/pseuds/agerefandom
Summary: A sugar sweet story, exploring Christine and Erik's life together in an established relationship. Focusing on Erik as a traumatized age regressor, and Christine's attempts to reparent him through regression. Their married life is only background: Christine thinks of her husband and child!Erik as two different people in her life.
Relationships: Christine Daaé & Erik | Phantom of the Opera, Christine Daaé/Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	Forever More

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on @agerefandom, my tumblr regression blog where I'm always accepting requests from sfw regression accounts. This wasn't a request, I just rewatched one of the productions and the idea of regressor!Erik clung tight to my heart and wouldn't let go. This story was written purely for my own happiness, but I hope other people might enjoy it anyways! 
> 
> I use non-sexual kink tags on AO3 because this website's tagging system doesn't handle age regression very well, and I hope that I can popularize the agere tag eventually, so that regression and age play can be kept separate one day on AO3, as they are on tumblr.

Christine had always known that living with Erik would be an adjustment, but there were many parts of it that she didn’t expect.

She had known that his sheet music would spread across the music room, always multiplying. She had known that he would have bad days, withdrawn or angry, that there would be nights when he wouldn’t come to bed because he was working or didn’t want to be near her. She had known that he would go back to wearing his masks sometimes, that he would leave entirely and go wandering through the catacombs or into the countryside.

Christine had also known that he would always return to her, removing his mask and kneeling at her feet, pressing his cheek to her thigh as she ran her fingers over the uneven scars on his head. This was their quiet ritual of forgiveness, marking his return as her husband.

There were other things about Erik that she hadn’t expected.

Christine was out during the day, teaching dance and singing lessons to children in the city, travelling from house to house. Erik made himself helpful, doing the chores, sewing Christine’s dresses, making their meals. Sometimes Christine felt like she had a new housekeeper instead of a husband, but she appreciated the help and made sure Erik received her thanks for every meal and new outfit.

Erik was a creature of many moods: sometimes he was playful, sometimes he was soft, sometimes angry or distant. Christine learned to navigate his emotional tempest, the times when she needed to leave before they fought and the times when she needed to wait him out.

Sometimes Erik was young. It used to happen when he woke up from nightmares, confused and afraid. He would cling to Christine, sobbing and vulnerable in a way she rarely saw. He was different in this space, but he was so different from day to day. It took her a while to realize that it was something different from his mood swings. He seemed disoriented in this space, confused by the house and even by Christine herself. He flinched at every movement but melted into her arms when she held him, clinging to her nightgown with a white-knuckled grip.

Christine asked Erik about it in the day, and he twisted his hands together, his shoulders squared. Said that sometimes he couldn’t remember that he’d grown up. Sometimes he thought he was still a child, lost and alone, but it always passed and he would come back to himself.

Christine’s heart broke for the boy that Erik had been, and what he couldn’t move on from: that abandonment, that fear that had been part of him for so long.

So she started to care more for Erik when he was young. Christine had never been very confident at sewing, but she modified a few patterns designed for children and made Erik a kilted suit, like the boys had worn when she was young. To her gratification, little Erik loved the kilt, running his hands over the fringed edges, and she ended up sewing three more from the same pattern so that he could wear them when one was dirty.

Erik started to be young more often, a few evenings a week, and they talked about it again. She assured him that she loved caring for him, that this was special to her, fulfilling a maternal spirit she’d never really intended to nurture. Christine told him that she always wanted to spend time with her husband, but she loved her little boy as well. Erik looked at her with that deep uncertain awe that he had sometimes when she told him that she loved him. It always made her heart feel like it was pressing against her ribs, like she wanted to take Erik and press him into her chest where he could be safe inside of her forever.

Christine knew that was impossible, but at least she could cradle him when he was young, teach him the love that his first mother had not given.

It became another part of their lives together, like the drawn curtains, and their country home, and Erik’s paintings scattered around the walls.

* * *

“Mama!”

“Erik!” Christine ran to embrace her little boy, wrapping her arms around his chest and squeezing tight. He was so much taller than her, but he fit inside her arms perfectly. “Little one, how have you been?”

“Mama!”

Erik wasn’t very talkative when he was young, and Christine thought he was probably very young indeed. Maybe two or three at the oldest, and she always wished she could carry him.

“Have you been drawing?” There were papers scattered across the floor. Erik was very proper about keeping his art on the desk when he was working, so it was probably a result of her little boy having fun with Erik’s art supplies. “May I see?”

Erik knelt to scoop up a handful of papers from the floor and held them up to her, smiling widely. Christine loved that expression. It had been hard-earned, and the switch from the scared little boy flinching at everything to an enthusiastic trouble-maker had been a long road. Erik still had his hard days as a boy, of course, days where he wouldn’t stop crying or where he was more confused than normal, but they were far less common than they had been when Christine had started caring for him.

“Oh, thank you.” Christine accepted the papers and started flipping through them. They were all charcoal drawings, and heavily smudged. That would explain why Erik had black all over his face: she had assumed that he’d gotten into the fireplace again. She would have to clean his hands before he started climbing on the furniture.

Erik was a talented artist as a grown man, but the ability did not translate to his younger self. Christine thought she could make out a stringed instrument in one of the drawings, and a figure with long hair in another. Most of them were scribbled messes of black, covering the page. Christine carefully shuffled the pages into an orderly stack and placed them on the table.

“Those are amazing, darling. We’ll have to add them to our scrapbook.” She had come across advertisements for children’s scrapbooks in a periodical and had immediately started buying the blank books to keep her little Erik’s work and interests in. He liked to help her arrange the clippings, and she liked having a record of his younger self. She would ask him what he’d been drawing when he was older again, writing his interpretations underneath. Her husband was always embarrassed but indulgent in the face of Christine’s enthusiasm.

“Scrapbook!” Erik echoed. He liked to say words back, usually in a way that made sense, but sometimes Christine thought he just liked the sound of certain words.

“We’ll do that later,” she told him, kneeling down to join him on the floor. “Right now, we need to get you washed off.”

“No!” Erik made a grab for the papers Christine had left on the table, and she intercepted his charcoal-smudged hands, gently interlacing their fingers.

“We’ll change you into your kilt afterwards,” she told him, and Erik’s expression changed to a less defiant one. Christine tried not to smile, even though the victory trilled in her chest. “Come on, little _maestro_ , Mama wants you to play for her before dinner and you can’t touch the piano with dirty fingers.”

After that, Erik followed her to the bathroom willingly. Christine removed his clothes, waving away his attempts to help. He had clearly not been planning to be young when she got home, and he was still wearing his usual suit. Most of the charcoal smudges were on his dark wool trousers, which wasn’t much of a problem, but she didn’t want him to get it on the white shirt he was wearing.

She kissed his cheeks to distract him while she undid the buttons, paying equal attention to both cheeks, although she was gentle when she brushed kisses around the scars on his right side. He laughed, a carefree sound that she never heard from her husband. They both had lovely laughs, but they were so different. She loved them both so much.

Once Erik was free of his suit, she laid his clothes on the railing and sat her little boy down on a stool, bringing the washbasin over to clean his hands and face. He squirmed and whined, and she kissed his face again, cleaning off the charcoal with practiced sweeps of the sponge.

When the washing was done, she led him to their bedroom and pulled out his favourite outfit, a dark green kilt with a plain shirt and a vest. They had an English storybook with illustrations of a boy wearing an identical outfit, and it was one of Erik’s favourite stories when he was young like this.

With newly clean fingers, Erik dressed himself, although Christine swept in to tuck his shirt and straighten his collar.

“There we are,” she said, stepping back to admire her work. “My handsome boy.”

Erik blinked up at her contentedly, his right eye only closing halfway because of the scar tissue that layered his eyelid back on itself.

“What do you think, Erik? Do you want to play for Mama?”

“Sing!” Erik popped up from the bed, reaching for Christine’s hand.

“Yes, darling, of course I’ll sing for you.” She drew him close and kissed his forehead, running a hand over his head. She’d convinced him to shave what little hair he had on his head, and now it was a soft surface of wrinkled scars and divots, perfect for running her hands over when they were cuddling.

“Sing!!” Erik protested, pulling away from her embrace. Things were clearly not moving quickly enough for him.

“Yes, yes, alright,” Christine relented, letting him pull her down the hall to their music room. Erik’s piano stood in the center, stacks of sheet music all around. He was much neater with his paintings because he had to be: his music wasn’t threatened by a stray foot stomping on them.

Erik sat on the piano bench and Christine sat beside him, resting her hand on his knee. “What will you play me today?” she asked as Erik placed his hands on the keys.

He didn’t answer with words, simply beginning the song when she was done speaking. Christine wasn’t sure why Erik was so talented at music when he was young, yet could hardly draw a straight line with charcoal. Perhaps it was something to do with his natural talents, or something else entirely, but Christine wasn’t complaining as he went straight into one of the most recent operas they had been learning together.

His memory for music was less jumbled than his other memories when he was young. Sometimes when he couldn’t even remember Christine, she could get through to him by singing familiar lullabies, soothing him slowly and bringing him back, helping him to remember that he was safe, that she wouldn’t hurt him, that she was safe.

Erik played, and Christine sang. He loved to hear her sing, even though he didn’t know that he was the one to teach her. For now, she was his mother, and she was proud of his music, and that was all that mattered.

She was making sure that he knew he was loved, now and always. Forever more.


End file.
